Physiotherapy
by Kilrez
Summary: Breathing seemed to be taking up a lot of his energy at that moment. And staring. Staring and breathing.
1. Wheelchair

**Physiotherapy, part one**

This is set immediately (within a couple of months) post infarcation, and written very late at night.

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House hung between the walking bars, staring at his feet and panting. Indeed, breathing seemed to be taking up a lot of his energy at that moment. And staring. Staring and breathing. Stare fiercely enough, and the way it ached to breathe was turned into little flashing lights, dancing across his view of his overly pale and bony feet. It was an ironic switch-around of the grim reaper and his almost-victim.

'I hate you,' he ground out, an annoying drop of sweat trickling down between his shoulder blades. He didn't have a free limb to deal with it.

'You've already said that. Come on House.' The voice was warm and smooth like honey, and, he felt, it could have persuaded a stone to sing. But he could not move. That was even further from the realms of physical possibility than operatically talented boulders.

'Get me the wheelchair you sadistic ass. I'll buy a nice electric one and run down old grannies on the footpath.' With mammoth effort, he dragged his head up and fixed his tormentor with a piercing glare, to show he was serious. Chocolate brown eyes smiled mildly, watching him from directly in front of him, in the torturous path delineated by the bars. Coaxing. Hard to avoid.

'I know you can House. If you're still spitting hell-fire and acid, then you can take one more step.'

There was no hint of doubt in that honeyed voice, and House took umbrage. He could feel the weak muscles in his arms straining from holding him up, his whole body atrophied from his long confinement in a hospital bed. Sunk down as he was, elbows level with shoulders and knees bent, he could feel his shoulder-blades pressing together, the muscles there bunched up. Every straining muscle was shaking, and he was sure he was about to collapse. And here was the very picture of calm and peace, lightly requesting that he lift himself and take another step.

Half out of spite, House lurched forwards, attempting to get away with a half-step. His over-tired sinews collapsed at the moment of greatest strain, and with am abrupt stab of panic, he realized he was going to fall. Wilson realized it first, and had caught him under the armpits before he managed to hit the ground, probably jarring his drugged up thigh into abrupt and angry pain. It only gave a little murmur, and the rest of him hurt worse anyway.

'That wasn't a step,' Wilson commented wryly, holding House easily. House let himself be supported totally, too tired, in body and soul, for pride. He was staring at his feet again, having looked down to watch the floor coming up to meet him. He could feel his feet touching the ground, but there was no weight on them. He'd almost grown used to the sensation of useless feet.

'Have I been sufficiently tortured yet Genghis Kahn?' he muttered, unable to look at Wilson whilst the man was holding him up. It was humiliating, the fact that he was so light after his months in bed that Wilson hadn't even needed to shift his weight. He might as well have been a doll.

Wilson sighed. 'If you'd step properly, you wouldn't fall.'

House wanted to bite so many things to that, but Wilson was carrying him backwards, a measly three steps, to his starting point, the blessed wheelchair. House both loathed and loved it. It meant rest, but he was bound to it now, so utterly dependant as to be laughable.

House settled for a grumbling 'I hate you,' once he was safely settled down into it. He used his tired arms (they felt floppy and useless like wet noodles. He forced them into work, since they were the only bit of him that still did) to roll the chair backwards, asserting his independence to extract himself from the dreaded line of the walking bars.

Wilson was smiling, and House felt a brief flare of annoyance that Wilson wouldn't ever get offended by anything he said, but it faded quickly enough. 'Sponge bath time,' he said with false gaiety.

'You worry me sometimes.'

'Only sometimes? I'll try harder. Or did you mean to say I worry your wife?' House leered in an inappropriate manner. Wilson just laughed from behind him, and House felt the wheelchair start to move as Wilson took the handles and began to push. There was a momentary toss up in House's mind between pride and tiredness. Like so many times before, tiredness won out, and he was pushed through the hospital like an infirm. A growling, snapping, sweaty infirm.

'They think I'm an infirm,' House groused to Wilson.

'I highly doubt it,' replied Wilson from behind his head as they turned a corner. 'Infirm is classed as someone who can't make an intern whimper with a single glare.'

'Is that your excuse for why the head of oncology is giving me sponge baths?'

'Indubitably,' murmured Wilson dryly, and pushed the button to call the elevator. House found a smile on his lips, and for a moment, he forgot about his cursed thigh.

_The end of part one (and a warning that there may not be a part three)_


	2. Crutches

**Physiotherapy, Part Two**

Well, I stayed up late and it happened again. I think my muse keeps odd hours. Here is the chapter that I didn't promise I could write. Likewise, there is one more chapter, that also may never be written, although I have an idea for it that I can prise out of an old abandoned fic and recycle for this one, where it fits much better... anway- all you really need to know is that this is based off personal experience, but I don't doubt that others' experiences with physio would have been different. And half-way inspired from the line in the song 'Into the Dark' by Ben Lee. _'You can't climb till you're ready to fall...'_

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House hung between the walking bars, the sinews of his muscles standing out in his arms. His eyes were fixed into the patch of air in front of him, jaw set in determination. Every ounce of his will and concentration were focused on moving forwards- gathering balance and strength and just _shifting _himself. Like if he willed it enough, he could throw down his crutches and walk.

'I hate this,' he ground out, the words uneven with his strained breathing. His arm muscles were burning from holding his weight for so long, and he could tell that if he gave in now, he would not have the will to get up and try again.

'Come on House,' a soothingly calm voice murmured. 'You don't have to do this now. You've already pushed it beyond what the physiotherapist said you should do today.' The voice was like cool water over smooth pebbles- it made him want to just relax, give in… He had certainly done enough. But no, his fierce and fiery desire to walk, to be free again rose up, wiped out the suggestion that it was reasonable to stop now.

'The physiotherapist is a _tamade hundan!_' House growled, impatient.

'I would actually say that she knows a fair bit about over-exertion though,' replied Wilson smoothly. House could hear traces of worry beneath his tranquil surface, and it made him grit his teeth. No one thought he could do it. But he would be damned if he spent the rest of his life tied to those torture devices called crutches.

House turned his head to look at Wilson, where the oncologist leaned against the institutional-white painted wall, seemingly casually. What gave him away was that Wilson never leaned casually. He only did it when he was agitated (showing it or no), and was pretending to be casual. House wanted to insist again that he _would_ walk, yet he knew what it would sound like (_The lady doth protest too much_). Curse Shakespeare for being right so much of the time. Why the hell should some medieval wordsmith know so much about modern dilemmas anyway?

And next to Wilson- bane of his life, unfailingly solid and real reminder of his own uselessness- leant the crutches. He shouldn't need them. It hurt to use them. In some ways, the wheelchair, which signaled his total defeat, was better. With the wheelchair, the way he was constantly forced to look up at everyone kept it clearly enough in his mind that he was a useless cripple now. The parody of a walk he had with the crutches was close enough to constantly make him reach for more… only to have it firmly dumped on him yet again, the painful knowledge… this was forever.

Anger and uselessness seething through his thoughts, he surged forwards, putting more weight on the thigh than he had come to learn it could safely take, in the hope that this time, over all of the other times, he would be borne forwards. Not down.

He felt a tearing in the muscles beneath his arms and all up his ribcage as he caught his weight with a sudden jerk on his arms. Wilson was already there, and before he could even push him away (let alone the fact that he had no free limb to do it with), had supported some of his weight as the fresh pain seared along his pulled muscles. 'I can do it,' he snapped in frustration. But he clearly couldn't. He could barely even stand any more, his arms throwing in the towel now they had most of the pressure released. Wilson said nothing, because there was nothing he could say to soothe House's pride, but he did not let go, leaning awkwardly over the bars and keeping his grip on House's upper arms firm.

'You all right?' he murmured after a moment, voice somehow calming the screaming fire merging into one great lumpy knot from all the separate points of pain ratcheting through House's body. House had used the leeway, the few seconds of rest given to him whilst Wilson supported him, to gather a last scrap of strength and get his good leg back under him. It shook, tremblingly, and he knew it would not take his weight for long.

'Fine,' he ground out, still irritated. 'Let go.'

Wilson did so without hesitation, which went a way to cooling House's fierce feelings of uselessness and humiliation. He hated falling now, above all else. Wilson stayed close though, and somehow his presence sent soothing vibrations, rather than irritating ones. Everyone irritated House these days, so it was a rare feeling not to mind such mothering.

'I'm going to fetch your wheelchair,' Wilson told him, noting the way all House's concentration was going in to merely standing up.

'No,' said House immediately, before taking a deep breath and composing himself. 'Just… just bring the crutches. I can do it.'

There was a moment of silence from Wilson, but House didn't look or relent, and then he heard the other man moving, and the slight rattle of the damn walking sticks as they were gathered up. Cool hands touched him as Wilson eased one crutch under each armpit. House just stared straight in front; a battle of wills with the patch of air in front of him, because he would make it, whatever any cursed physiotherapist said.

'I hate this,' he muttered again, shifting slightly to feel the balance of the crutches. They pressed deep into the soreness where his muscles had been pulled, but he ignored that, as he ignored the hot pulsing of his missing thigh.

'If you'd back off a bit sooner, it wouldn't come to this,' Wilson told him- probably the only person who could use those words at that moment and not cause House to bridle.

'If I back off a bit sooner, I'll never walk,' House shot back, looking down at the ground, then back up, measuring. With the crutches propped under his armpits, supporting his upper body, he was able to lean most of his weight on them and shuffle forwards, the tilt to his pelvis long established through a need to keep his damaged leg from taking too much weight.

Wilson waited patiently whilst he extracted himself from the bars, setting himself by House's shoulder as they slowly made their way out of the physiotherapy room.

'Chinese time,' he declared with hungry decisiveness.

'It's beyond me how you can be hungry after doing so much work,' Wilson replied, matching House's stuttering pace with natural ease.

'Because exercise requires energy?' suggested House in mock stupidity.

'It dulls immediate hunger,' corrected Wilson in amusement.

'If you say so,' House soothed him in a sing-song voice. 'We'll just claim this isn't an immediate hunger then.'

'I don't need concessions from you,' retorted Wilson in amusement.

'Hah,' snorted House, before falling silent. He was exhausted, bone weary and tired. And he knew he'd been feeling worse tomorrow. The only consolation was that this would go towards his final goal, of not having to cant his pelvis like this, keeping that useless leg off the smooth marble floor. It was small defense against the way the hospital bustled past him, the flow of the corridors parting flowing past him at a speed he could not longer even dream of possessing any more.

'They're mocking me with their legs,' he grumbled, making yet another placement of the crutches _and swing, place, swing…_ If he left it solely up to his cerebellum, the pain the movement caused was easier to ignore.

'They wouldn't dare,' replied Wilson in mock outrage. 'They're not getting any take-out then.'

House gave a small laugh, and for a moment it almost seemed possible that he would walk again, someday.

_The end of part two_

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References: 

_Tamade hundan_ is chinese for something that's higher than this story is rated. It's from Firefly. If you really want to know what it means, look it up in the Firefly pinyinary.

_The lady doth protest too much _was said by Queen Gertrude in Shakespeare's play Hamlet. It refers to her belief that the actor (actually symbolising her, although she doesn't realise this) is betraying guilt by overly insisting on her innconce.


	3. Cane

Part 3

I know I've been gone for an obsecenely long time. But I'm still getting the odd review turning up in my inbox which doesn't let me forget. And an unfinished story is like a splinter in the mind until corrected. So this is me, if not getting back on the horse, then at least giving it a good brush-down and saddling it up.

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House idly watched the walking bars, mind briefly focusing on his regular breathing. 

Staring. Staring and breathing. The all consuming actions, as thought freewheeled through past occurrences. Absently, his cane passed back and forth between his hands, the movement completely unconscious now. His hands knew the shape, the weight, the balance of the cane, down to a tee. It was part of him.

House, the cripple. He was irrevocably branded as such now. He could rage against the world, against circumstances, but the one person he couldn't hide any truth from was himself. Because the truth was, he hated himself. He hated what he had become.

The air conditioning in the physiotherapy room blew down the back of his collar and caused a brief shiver to pass through him. It was cold in here, sitting still. He refocused his eyes from nothingness as the door clicked quietly open and shut.

'I thought you'd forgotten where this place was,' a warm voice said, gently mocking. Wilson moved over to sit next to him, on one of the chairs that lined the wall.

'Of course not. It's the best hiding place in the whole hospital.'

'Ah,' replied Wilson, amused. 'Not a place for exercise and rehabilitation then?'

House scowled slightly, eyeing the parallel bars that had haunted his dreams in the months after his infarction. 'Rehabilitation implies that improvement will occur.' He said simply.

Wilson let out a small sigh, and there were a few minutes of silence. Finally he stood. 'I'm going to go and get some lunch. Coming?'

House glanced up at him briefly, looking at him for the first time since he had entered the room. Looking back down at the cane in his hands, he shook his head once.

There was another sigh, and Wilson left without argument. House began to pass the cane backwards and forwards again. Staring.

The End


End file.
